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Take a look at a newcomer to the scene: The Left Hook: Politics with a Punch.

“The Left Hook offers a progressive perspective on issues that impact Silicon Valley. We stand for social and economic justice, and our writers seek to advance those values by bringing to light current events and issues that too often are neglected. Although this site is curated by the South Bay Labor Council, its subjects will not be limited to labor issues. The Left Hook will provide a platform for a broad spectrum of news and commentary from a wide variety of citizen journalists. ”

If you can lure people into borrowing then you own them, sometimes literally—it’s a game as old as money itself.

Regular people don’t know much about money, loan terms or the trap of debt-slavery. This enables predators to dangle loans in front of desperate people and entrap them into various forms of financial and even actual servitude. Again and again schemes and scams pop up that trick people into borrowing. Of course, we all know how the credit-card trap has ensnared millions. Car loan terms have gone from two to three and now as long as five or even six years because people think a lower monthly payment is a good thing. In recent years we’ve seen “subprime” mortgages and payday lenders entrap borrowers. Now there is a new predatory lending scheme in operation called “workplace loans.” Keep an eye out for this, it is just one more way for the financial industry to lure workers into debt slavery.

But also keep an eye out for a different form of workplace loan that can actually help employees.

1) Good public policy as popular public policy. A government jobs program with a minimum wage increase would be both. Moral Mondays as an example of bringing public opinion to bare. Gillibrand’s populist “Opportunity Agenda.”

2) Political satirist CoT’s most ridiculous moment from the morning gabfest.

3) Potential progressive options to Clinton (Sanders, Schweitzer, O’Malley) and the impact they may have on the Democratic Party, and Clinton’s positions and campaign.

Virtually Speaking is a regular online “radio” show that you can listen to live while it is recorded, or later (and on Podcast.)

This week, commentators Dave Johnson (Campaign for America’s Future) & Cliff Schecter (Libertas LLC) talk about good public policy as popular public policy and how a government jobs program with a minimum wage increase would be both, e.g. Moral Mondays and Gillibrand’s populist “Opportunity Agenda”

A ridiculous moment from Culture of Truth

Then potential progressive options to a Clinton candidacy e.g., Sanders, Schweitzer, O’Malley; and the impact they may have on the Democratic Party as well as Clinton’s positions and campaign.

Here’s something to read after you get done trying to figure out how to make the mortgage or the rent or the car payment this month. It’s a little story about how the other half lives. Well, maybe not the other half, exactly. More like the obscenely wealthy .01%.

What do you do when you just have too darn much money? Let’s say you already have your mansion(s), your jet, your yacht, your cars, your $50,000 watches, and you’ve still got too much money left over. (Yes, this really is a problem some people have.) While many, many Americans are struggling to get by, and a very few ultra-wealthy have too much money, here are five signs that the rich are just too rich.

2) Lowering the Medicare eligibility age takes the most expensive people out of the private insurance pool, which lowers everyone else’s premiums, and these people then become the lease expensive people in Medicare, which lowers the cost-per-person.

Political & social commentators digby and Susie Madrak, offer a counter point to the Sunday morning talk shows. They compare notes from their observations, investigations and considerations of the past week. Culture of Truth satirizes the Sunday Morning talk shows. Sherry Reson moderates.

Who are ‘we the people’? How might clear majorities of people prevail given that all the electeds (mostly) are against us? Dave Johnson, Gaius Publius, Stuart Zechman and Jay Ackroyd consider the political environment often described as left, right, center and the inverse relationship between the views of the people with power and the general populace.

For example, large majorities in both Republican-supporting voters and Dem-supporting voters favor No Cuts to Education, Medicare and Social Security.

How do we bring this popular coalition together in a way that wins? What are our best strategies for doing that?